ENG v IND 2018: Sandeep Patil says Virat Kohli and co only enjoying coffee in England

Sandeep pulled Virat's leg on his statement before the England tour.

Sandeep Patil | GETTY

Sandeep Patil, India cricket team's former chief selector, is bummed out by the fact that Virat Kohli and the team couldn't make use of their time in England. They are now facing the consequences as India is trailing by 0-2 in the series. 

India will have to win the last Test to stop England from taking an unassailable lead in the five-match series. 

Team management had acknowledged their lack of preparation in South Africa earlier this year. Learning from the loss there, they only played limited-overs series ahead of Test series to adjust in conditions. But they couldn't make much use of the time ahead of the Test series. 

They played only a three-day practice game before going playing the opening Test despite having enough time. 

Patil questioned Indian players for not training and preferring to enjoy the spare time. He also took a dig at Kohli who had said about enjoying coffee in England. 

"We all clearly remember captain Virat Kohli and coach Ravi Shastri's joint press conference before leaving for the tour of England earlier this summer. One bold statement stood out, 'We have enough days to acclimatize in England and we are going to enjoy coffee,' " Sandeep wrote in his column for The Quint. 

"Seeing the performance of the Indian team in the first two Tests so far, the team really seems to have taken their skipper's statement seriously - they are truly only enjoying the coffee in English conditions," he added.

Writing more about Kohli's statement about coffee, Patil continued, "In earlier days, it was grilled in our minds that we needed to watch, improve, practice hard, follow the senior players, learn from them and take their advice. But instead of taking the advice of players who have been on multiple tours of England, and have succeeded, Virat Kohli's team seems happy to be enjoying the country's coffee.

"In fact, if I look at the Indian captains who toured England, Ajit Wadekar, Sunil Gavaskar, Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and Azhar, none of them ever made such an irresponsible comment on the eve of such an important tour."

On Monday, Sunil Gavaskar was furious with Indian team spending more time in London than practicing in Nottingham which has better facilities.

"But clearly as we have seen from the start of the ODI series, they are in love with London. You cannot get practice facilities in London as easily as you would in Nottingham - I hope they practice from Tuesday. And there should be no optional practice. Everybody needs to get down to practice There's no such thing as optional practice when you are 0-2 down," Gavaskar had told India Today.

 
 

By Sihyeu Singh - 15 Aug, 2018

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